2

In short: Does anybody know why running Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS on Samsung 850 Pro 512GB drive results in corrupted file system and random files disappearing?

Here is the long story: In 2013 I got System76 laptop and I paired it with Plextor M5M 256GB (PX-256M5M) SSD. For almost two years this system was rock solid. About 3 weeks ago I replaced the SSD with new Samsung 850 Pro 512GB (MZ-7KE512) and sense then I have been experiencing stability issues. At beginning was small crashes or screen corruptions, but week after week the problem become progressively worst. My investigation quickly identified a lot of corrupted files and some just missing. After I searched the Internet I found that there are at least two main issues:

  1. Samsung 8xx drives do not properly support queued TRIM command execution and have been blacklisted by the Linux kernel developers Link 1. But I'm not sure if that patched is back-ported to 3.16.0-53-generic #72~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Nov 6 18:17:23 UTC 2015 x86_64 GNU/Linux kernel.
  2. Algolia worked with Samsung to identify a bug in Linux kernel related to use of Samsung 850 Pro 512GB in RAID0 configuration. Link 2 (I'm not using any RAID). Looks like Samsung provided a patch Link 3, but I'm having hard time determining if this patch is accepted by kernel developers. And if it ever going to make it into Ubuntu kernel.

For now, as workaround, I have disabled trim by removing execution flag from /etc/cron.weekly/fstrim until I find better solution. At the same time Ubuntu explicitly white-lists Samsung drives in /sbin/fstrim-all. Am I the only one with this issue?

BeGood
  • 539
Svetoslav Trochev
  • 21
  • I am using the Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD drive, on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (64-bit), with NO issues. How did you install data? Did you 'transfer' data, or do a full OS install? – david6 Nov 26 '15 at 20:11
  • Thank you for your input, david6. I used clonezilla to backup the partition. Next I booted from latest Ubuntu LiveDVD and manually partitioning the SSD, making sure it is aligned correctly. Next I restored the content of the partition. – Svetoslav Trochev Nov 26 '15 at 21:05
  • Issue then is: Are Ubuntu setting for using an SSD drive, use of TRIM, etc. ALL setup correctly? My current setup is clean OS install (which auto-detects SSD), and which has these correct settings. – david6 Nov 26 '15 at 21:15
  • As far as I know the only difference between my setting and standard install is relatime option in my /etc/fstab and I'm using default scheduled job at /etc/cron.weekly/fstrim to trim the drive. Is there are other configuration settings that I need to verify? – Svetoslav Trochev Nov 26 '15 at 22:06
  • I haven't look at SSD / TRIM requirements for some time. Try reviewing: http://askubuntu.com/questions/18903/how-to-enable-trim – david6 Nov 27 '15 at 09:41
  • And an article I read long ago: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/enable-trim-on-ssd-solid-state-drives.html – david6 Nov 27 '15 at 09:44
  • Thanks david6, That is exactly how I configured mine as well. That said, I reinstalled my old SSD, restored the disk image I took before making any changes. While I was recovering my work over the past 3 weeks, I was using my backup desktop. ... It crashed twice on me and ended with corrupted initrd. This computer has regular HDD. Shortly after that my laptop crashed as well. At this point I all most sure that latest kernel update is the root cause of my problem. I'm going to rebuild both computers and use older kernel. I'll report back. – Svetoslav Trochev Nov 27 '15 at 17:35

0 Answers0